Lost in your genealogical research?
Once you’ve collected information on dozens of your ancestors, you may find yourself at a loss as to which branch of the family to continue researching.
How do you regain visibility and know what to look for?
You’ve printed out your family tree, which shows the full names and dates of birth and death of each individual.
But, even when printed on large-format paper, the document does not indicate whether you still have information or people to research in order to complete a family branch.
Draw up a list of information to be sought for each individual
To continue your research, you’ll need to draw up a list of the information or people you need to find out more about.
It is possible to list the missing information manually, but this will take time. And this work will have to be repeated regularly to take into account the progress of your research.
Organize the list of research to be carried out, based on the progress achieved for each individual.
To continue your research effectively, you’ll need to choose a research method:
– You can choose an individual in the genealogy and establish your next research by progressively going back up his family tree, generation after generation, until a period when it becomes very difficult to find records…
– You can do the same by going down the tree through the descendants of this individual, then the descendants of these descendants and so on, until you reach the contemporaries for whom it becomes impossible to obtain information other than directly from the people (because of the laws).
These first two methods are called progressive (through ascendants or descendants). They offer the advantage of logically advancing your research generation by generation.
There is, however, an alternative to these two progressive methods: following a so-called opportunistic method. In this approach, every piece of information discovered is taken into account without delay. The genealogist will update his or her next research accordingly: for example, a birth record may reveal a sibling. The genealogist may decide to search for a marriage record concerning this new person (as the records of the commune of birth are consulted) and suspend current research for the time being. This opportunistic method reduces the number of times records are consulted in a given place, and greatly simplifies data verification (as families are more easily constructed). But this method has one major drawback: it causes genealogists to lose control of their research by changing their focus.
To sum up: it is possible to draw up a list of your next searches by hand, but it will take time. And this work will have to be repeated regularly to take into account the progress of your research.
Discover Genealogical Data Analysis, the ideal tool to boost your genealogical research!
Instead of doing this work manually, take advantage of the power of Genealogical Data Analysis.
Our application quickly identifies missing information, or information for which you haven’t provided a source. Genealogical Data Analysis helps you develop an effective search strategy, suggesting avenues for finding missing data and sources to check, and organizing searches so you lose as little time as possible.
Use Genealogical Data Analysis to consolidate your information and fill in the gaps.
Don’t let your research stall any longer!